Strengthening democracy: tackling the over-representation of men

Democracy can only win
the global struggle for ascendancy if women rise too. Marion Bowman reports on a London conference on gender and politics attended by politicians –
mainly women - from around the world.

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The most important election of our times has finally
concluded with a second term victory for a mixed race, socially liberal,
fiscally progressive Democratic US President. At a time of high unemployment
and growing inequality, Barack Obama’s return to the White House bucks a lot of
trends. But other trends worked in his favour – like the demographic trend that
is making the Hispanic vote the biggest challenge facing the Republican Party
in the longer term.

Never before has the Republican Party and its supporters
looked so un-American. Obama referred to America’s diversity in his acceptance speech
while the Republican campaign often revealed how problematic the party finds
this fact of contemporary American life.

The view on its whiteness and maleness became crystal clear when
Republican Congressional candidates Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock and Joe Walsh
made controversial anti-abortion claims that
drove women in their constituencies, and nationally, firmly into the
Democratic camp. And this undertow of the Republican defeat was
all the more pointed when Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin became the first
openly lesbian Senator to be elected.

The 2012 election confirmed that women have arrived as a
formidable force in American politics and women’s rights and gender sensitive
policies have become a major challenge to American governance. It was
understandable but unfortunate, therefore, that none of 2012’s successful
female American politicians were able to join their peers from around the world
who had gathered in London during the week of the US elections for the International Parliamentary Conference on Gender and Politics to discuss what,
nevertheless, remains a fact of politics globally - its ongoing domination by
men.

IPCGP conference panel. Photo: Paul Milsom, Barrett & Coe

The UN
recommends that legislatures should have a minimum 30% of women. Fewer than 25
countries meet that target. The norm is just under 20% in the lower house. In
the past ten years there has only been a 6% increase in women’s representation.

For decades women’s under-representation in politics has
been framed as a problem to do with women – they don’t want to get into
politics, they don’t put themselves forward, they don’t have the right skills, personalities
or temperament, they give up. The supply is inadequate, which is a fault of
women themselves.

But as Professor Sarah Childs of Bristol University told the
overwhelmingly female delegates – all themselves elected to legislatures in 46
countries – the real problem of gender inequality in politics is not the
unwillingness of women to join in but the over-representation of men. ‘The most
robust argument in support of women’s presence in politics is the justice and
fairness argument,’ she said. There are other arguments, many that appeal to
the electorate although they are relatively untested: that the presence of
women will make a difference to the policies adopted; that there will be better
decision-making; that there will be innovation in politics. But, said Professor
Childs, ’democracy is about political equality. There is a democratic deficit
if the rulers don’t look like those they rule.’ For that reason the numbers
matter. Rule that is disproportionately in the hands of men lacks democratic
legitimacy. This argument is what works
best with political elites themselves.

But delegates testified to the fundamental problem in
winning this argument: that for more women to succeed, some men – those very
elites - have to give up power, and they don’t want to do this. Dr Nurhayati
Ali Assegaf of Indonesia, who is President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s
Coordinating Committee on Women Parliamentarians, said: ‘When you have women in
competition with men, you become the enemy. Politics means men. They do not
want to give way. It threatens them. So you have to make men your strategic
partners. You have to play a very active part in your political party - I am
the Deputy Secretary General of my party – and you need to pick the right
candidate to run for president’. There
were several references to women political aspirants facing intimidation and
ridicule and being undermined. Even in Denmark, where women are 40% of
parliament, MP Liselott Blixt told the conference that a male competitor in her
own party asked her not to stand as it might reduce his position in the
election outcome.

The evidence shows that by and large what makes the
difference when the numbers of women elected increase is quotas, a forcible
strategic intervention that cuts through the otherwise glacial pace of progress
if there is reliance on socially or culturally determined notions like ‘merit’.

The problem of politics being a man’s world is a real one.
Professor Joni Lovenduski of Birkbeck University said: ’The masculine
presentation of politics in a number of countries actively discourages women.
Polling shows that women are less interested in ‘politics’ than men, but ask
them about policies and they have
very strong opinions. Politics is culturally coded as ‘masculine’. Political
institutions are gendered, women have had to accommodate to them. Women
political representatives are never allowed to forget they are women. If you
look at the treatment of [the Australian Prime Minister] Julia Gillard, even
hiding behind the abstractions of science, I find it difficult to cope with.’

Other than quotas, what is to be done? Academics like Pippa Norris and Mona Lena Crook
have set out a range of practical reforms to political institutions and
processes, particularly within political parties, that could be completely
transformative. The real barriers have been studied in depth and are now better
understood. They range from the way constitutions are drafted to the practices
of political parties to the nature of elected office and parliamentary
structures. The explanation has moved on from it being a problem with women’s
willingness to stand. Tackling the barriers is not an intractable problem
dependent on deeper cultural or economic drivers for solutions. And it matters
that these barriers are removed and women’s participation increased.

While there is now a great deal of research on what makes
the difference to the numbers of women succeeding in politics, importantly,
there is also an increasing amount of research on what effect women’s presence
in politics then has on policy. The policy effects are not necessarily what
feminists or activists want, warned Professor Childs, but there is evidence
that women’s presence has a transformative effect on politics and government.
Research by Joni
Lovenduski bears out the notion that women’s presence connects to policies
that address women’s concerns. Lovenduski
said that the ‘huge debate’ about sexual abuse and violence against women could
not have taken place without an increase in women’s representation, along with
the new policy focus on childcare, work/life balance, single mothers or
improved equality legislation. Delegates throughout the three days of the
conference, organised jointly by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary
Association, added grist to that mill. Malawi MP Nasrine Pillane Mia spoke
of how the law in her country had been changed to enable women to inherit
property on the death of their husbands. Senator Pia Cayetano of the
Philippines succeeded in getting a law on agriculture amended to make women
more visible when the assumption had been that farmers were always men. Latvian
MP Daina Kazaka reported on a parliamentary clash over attempts by a male MP,
acting in concert with radical Christian organisations, to restrict abortion
rights. The technical political expertise of experienced women politicians is
critical to tackling the ingrained nature of discrimination. Eve Bazaiba
Masudi, a Democratic Republic of Congo MP, related how she is focusing on
reforming the country’s legal codes: ‘The constitution talks of parity but in
practice the family code is applied, which is discriminatory. Married women
cannot do anything without their husband’s authorisation. We are looking at new
legislation but there are blockages. Some of the content has been taken out.
Men are going to lose power. Women are in the ascendant and men are afraid of
it,’ she said.

Delegates heard that the IPU had only just adopted an Action
Plan for
Gender-Sensitive Parliaments which would make legislatures more
legitimate. There is a clear correlation
between women’s presence in politics and policies that meet women’s needs and
concerns, even if the picture is less clear when it comes to proving direct
cause and effect in relation to progress for women as citizens. After all,
women politicians come in all stripes just like men. But legitimacy is all. In
the global struggle for ascendancy, when democracy is weakened by its own
failings, and autocracy, theocracy, oligarchy and absolute monarchy rule much
of the world, democrats would be wise to prioritise this action plan. For
democracy, so young in terms of world history, can continue to rise but only,
as America’s Republicans have learnt to their cost this November, if women rise
too. The over-representation of men must be brought to an end.

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